Newcastle Bulletin: Protected action and KDH wage grab

We previously canvassed an action about pulling on-demand services with the people on that roster.  The company responded with the position that the roster was NOT voluntary, even though they have repeatedly referred to it as such and it is a bargaining claim from the RTBU to make it a permanent roster.

The company said that it would refuse to allocate any other work to the on-demand drivers participating in the ban, despite being short of drivers.

Because of the uncertain status of the roster and to protect on-demand drivers we are pulling the action. This means that on-demand services will continue to operate as normal.

Today, the company also said they are going to deduct 4.58% per shift for employees not turning on the BDC from first sign-on tomorrow. We’re not sure how they came up with the 21 minutes figure for using the BDC, but we’ve run this case before with Transit Systems in Sydney and the decision came back with a figure of 1.5%. We will be putting it to the company today that this should be the case otherwise we’ll be making an urgent application to the Fair Work Commission.

There are also some claims in the letter from company that are either half-hearted spin jobs or simply not true.

1. Apparently, our actions are ‘…unnecessarily disrupting the travelling public…’. I can tell you the RTBU office has received NO complaints at all about people upset they can’t pay for buses.
2. The company has ‘responded to all claims submitted by the RTBU’. They have, but in many cases those claims were dealt with by saying ‘no’ and then giving no reason why. That’s not good enough, if we get no reason from them then we can’t negotiate and it certainly does not constitute ‘…reasonable negotiations.’ as they claim.
3. While we thank the company for trying to convince union members of why they are taking action and that it’s magically not needed any more, the RTBU and its members will decide when industrial action is no longer called for to advance our claims. This is a poor attempt to divide workers and members can expect more of it.
4. Exactly which action ‘…continues to significantly impact the community.’ is a bit hard to understand. Is it the fact that their bus drivers are happier not dressed like prison guards or that the public is catching buses for free?

This KDH position is quite simple to explain. They don’t want you to take industrial action and will make up whatever stories they want to try and convince members to stop. It’s a bad look for them because it keeps attention on negotiations and the rubbish pay offer they’ve made.

There’s an easy way to stop actions and that is to give drivers a decent pay rise and not simply what is convenient to the company.

The company will always try and divide and conquer, and the RTBU will always keep fighting for our members.

We’ll be holding online member meetings next week to discuss next steps with members and there will be 3 meetings across a day to allow for you to hopefully attend at a time convenient for you. A bulletin with times and links will follow this Friday.